Tensions simmer across UK as site plans lurch into gear

Above: planning notices like this one, which tells of plans to build a Gypsy site, continue to draw out unparalleled hostility from locals. Picture: screengrab from "Noah's Ark" on Vimeo, © Jake Bowers

By Damian Le Bas

AS RISING TEMPERATURES bring Britain to the boil this week, one of the country's oldest recipes for simmering ethnic tension is also hotting up once again.

And while Gypsy sites remain as unpopular as ever with the settled community, the alternative- Travellers staying on the road and pulling onto whatever ground they can- is just as unpopular, with the contradicition seemingly invisible to both the media and the public.

Local councils that have carried out GTAAs- Gypsy and Traveller Accomodation Needs Assessments- are publishing the results of their research. And across the country, news that fresh pitches for Gypsies and Travellers need to be built is being met with anger as community groups form to try to derail the process.

In addition, Gypsies and Travellers who are on the road looking for summer work are forced to pull onto car parks, industrial estates and unsafe spots as the lack of transit pitches continues to pose a problem.

In central Bedfordshire, residents have clubbed together to serve the Council a petition with 3,000 signatures opposing the building of a new site at Faldo road near Barton-le-Clay.

Central Bedfordshire Council needs to provide nearly 70 new pitches for Gypsies and Travellers over the next 10 years, and although 7 pitches a year amounts to a tiny rate of development compared to social housing in general, opposition has generally been fierce.

Richard Beechener, who lives at Faldo Farm in Barton, told the BBC that the nearby site "contradicts all the guidelines the council has when considering sites for Gypsies and Travellers, yet it is still on the list."

A study done in the "coastal strip" region of West Sussex, which includes the towns of Worthing and Chichester as well as the newly designated South Downs National Park, says that over 80 new pitches will be needed in the area by 2027.

Meanwhile, BBC local radio has hosted phone-ins on the topic of Travellers pulling up temporarily on unauthorised land. As around 50 vehicles moved off land at Braypool in Brighton, East Sussex, concerns that Travellers might somehow pollute the aquifer supplying the city's water were once again voiced by locals.

In 2011, former Brighton University researcher James Rhodes used the potential for water pollution as an argument against the proposed site at nearby Horsdean.

Also this week, Travellers who have pulled onto a working industrial estate in Stoke-on-Trent have been met with complaints to the authorities by locals claiming their businesses have been affected and that children have been throwing stones at windows.

In 1994, the Conservative government under John Major introduced the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. The Act, which was widely condemned by human rights specialists and Gypsy community groups, removed the duty on local Councils to provide sites for Travellers and also introduced new powers for police to move Travellers on.